A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration
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- April 9–September 11, 2022
- October 30, 2022–January 29, 2023
 Original 2022 exhibition catalogue, featuring A Song for Travelers (2022) by Robert Pruitt | |
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A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration is the title of a touring contemporary art exhibition organized jointly by the Mississippi Museum of Art (MMA) and the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) in 2022. The exhibition comprises works by 12 African-American artists commissioned by the museums to examine "the profound impact of the Great Migration on the social and cultural life of the United States."[1] Ranging mediums including painting, photography, sculpture, fiber, installation, and video art, the works in the exhibition explore themes of migration, displacement, and community, often through the lens of the artists' own family histories during or after the Great Migration.[2] The exhibition was first shown at the MMA, followed by the BMA, before touring to several other American museums.
A Movement in Every Direction was planned around the question, "What would happen if today’s leading artists were given the space to think about the intersections of the Great Migration in a wholistic, expansive, and dynamic way?"[1] The Great Migration was the mass migration of millions of African Americans from the rural American South to urban areas in the North, Midwest, and West, often to escape state-sanctioned racial violence and seek economic opportunity.[3]
The Mississippi Museum of Art (MMA) in Jackson, and the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) jointly commissioned the art for the exhibition in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic.[2][1] Artists in the exhibition were asked "to research and reflect on their personal histories and migration narratives through the lens of their contemporary practices."[1] The exhibition was co-curated by Jessica Bell Brown, Curator and Department Head of Contemporary Art at the BMA, and Ryan N. Dennis, Chief Curator at the MMA's Center for Art & Public Exchange.[4]
The show was accompanied by the publication of a two-volume catalogue, published by Yale University Press in association with the MMA and BMA: A Movement in Every Direction: A Great Migration Reader, and A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration (both 2022). The first volume includes contemporary and historical texts along with archival documents and photographs from and about the Great Migration, while the second is a fully illustrated catalogue of works from the exhibition, accompanied by several commissioned texts.[5]
The exhibition was shown at the MMA from April through September 2022 and at the BMA from October 2022 through January 2023.[6][4] Following the original showing, the exhibition toured to the Brooklyn Museum, New York, from March through July 2023; and the California African American Museum (CAAM), Los Angeles, in August 2023. The exhibition was open at CAAM for less than two weeks when the museum was forced to close due to extensive storm damage, and the show did not reopen at the museum. The exhibition opened at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive beginning in April 2024.[7][8]
Themes and styles
The works in the exhibition vary widely in medium but largely focus on overlapping themes. In particular, works in the exhibition examined issues like land's relationship to identity and community; forced migration and violence; and the connections between family histories and broader cultural and national histories.[1][2]
Each artist contributed one or more works to the exhibition. The works range widely in style, including minimalist, abstract, and conceptual art, as well as figurative, immersive, and interactive act.[2]